Jin

After a year of unexplained delays, Jin's debut album has finally dropped, only to sound less like the proverbial next shit than late-Nineties hip-pop with a Chinese face. From the 8 Mile-like anthem "Here Now" and the maraca-shaking Latina ode "Señorita" to the hard Ruff Ryders beats of "Handz Off," The Rest Is History mingles clichés with thematically refreshing -- but musically ho-hum -- cuts about Tiananmen Square, interracial dating, and a Chinese food delivery gone wrong. Too precocious by half, Jin's shot at the introspection of Jay-Z's The Black Album falls short, leaving behind an annoying self-consciousness that mars "Club Song," the album's one veritable head-nodder ("This my club song/Everybody got one so I had to make a club song").